1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to portable light sources, such as flashlights and the like. More particularly, the invention relates to a microprocessor-controlled insertable flashlight adapter device adapted for use with an ordinary flashlight for selectively operating in at least three different modes.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Ordinary battery-operated flashlights heretofore are generally limited to standard beam-ON and beam-OFF operation under a user's manual activation of a switch. In order to obtain an attention-alerting flashing operation or coded message, such as Morse Coded messages, the user is required to manually activate the flashlight's ON-OFF switch. This action can significantly shorten the life of the ON-OFF switch. In addition, many users may not know Morse Code, or be able to maintain the character and inter-character timing associated with such codes.
While it is possible for a user to manually operate a flashlight's ON-OFF switch to emulate flashing or Morse Code operation, all other known solutions require the replacement of the entire flashlight for a more capable model in order to obtain the multiple modes of operation realized by the present invention.
The prior art has provided various solutions, but all of which require substantial modification of the flashlight body or internal circuitry. As such, the prior art solutions are not universally applicable to the large number of flashlights already manufactured and in use throughout the world.
In view of these problems, attempts have been made heretofore in the prior art to continuously develop new implementations so as to create techniques in which the user can operate the ordinary flashlight in multiple modes of operation without having to manually activate repeatedly, and thus shortening the life of, the ON-OFF switch. Although these improvements may have performed so as to maintain, or even increase, the life of the ON-OFF switch, these improvements inconveniently required adding an additional switch and bulb to the flashlight in order to achieve this goal.
A prior art search directed to the subject matter of this application in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office revealed the following Letters Patent:
4,703,4024,835,6655,091,6115,321,5915,667,2935,671,9995,909,952
Further, the prior art search also revealed Patent Application Publication Nos. 2004/0246713 dated Dec. 9, 2004 to Kwak and 2005/0128739 dated Jun. 16, 2005 to Sansolo.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,909,952 and 5,671,999 both to Guthrie et al. disclosed a flashing identification light adaptor system for a flashlight. In particular, the flashing light adaptor system includes an adaptor housing which is intended to replace the end cap, which includes male threads adapted to mate with the female threads in the barrel of the flashlight. The flashing light adapter housing includes a dedicated switch, a strobe light and a flasher circuit.
Further, there is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,667,293 to Own a flashlight with illumination and alerting effect comprising of a handle body, a lamp hood and a control circuit. The control circuit is retained within the large step of the handle body and comprises mainly a printed circuit board holder, a printed circuit board, an elastic push button and a connecting element. The printed circuit board is provided with two elastic switches at positions corresponding to the passing holes respectively, and incorporated with a cable connector at its front end, a conductive wire at the rear end. The conductive wire is soldered to a conductive copper plate wall of the sleeve and connected to the positive pole of a battery. The positive pole of the battery connects to the conductive copper plate of the printed circuit board, and its negative pole connects to the handle body made of metallic material. The bulb in the alerting lamp set can be controlled by the printed circuit board at the control circuit to provide either a twinkling effect or a constant lighting effect. The dots on the elastic push button are used to control the elastic switches of the printed circuit board, one for selection of On, Twinkling, or Off modes and the other selection of illumination lamp set or alerting lamp set.
Further, the patent to Cimock et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,591 discloses a flashlight which includes a strobe module. Enclosed in the strobe housing is an integrated circuit board, which incorporates a strobing circuit. The strobing circuit consists of a master transistor and a slave transistor, which form a Darlington circuit, a drain resistor, a resistor, an electrolytic capacitor and a flashlight bulb. Thus, when the strobing circuit is implemented the flashing bulb begins to strobe according to the time constant of the capacitor and the values of resistors in the circuit until the batteries are disconnected from the circuit.
The remaining patents, listed above but not specifically discussed, are deemed to be only of general interest and show the state of the art in battery-operated flashlights.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that designers in the industry have been developing and constructing a more efficient way to adapt an ordinary flashlight into a flashing flashlight heretofore in the prior art so as to maintain the lifespan of the original ON-OFF switch. In spite of these efforts in the prior art, it would be still desirable to provide a microprocessor-controlled insertable flashlight adapter device for use in a flashlight so as to limit the amount of modifications, to the body or circuitry of the original flashlight, required to make the flashlight selectively operate in at least three different modes and to maintain the lifespan of the original ON-OFF switch.
None of the prior art discussed above discloses a microprocessor-controlled insertable flashlight adapter device like that of the present invention which eliminates the burdensome modifications needed to make an original flashlight selectively operate in at least three different modes.